Tracking

August 2012

August 31, 2012

Africa's urban population is growing faster than that of any other region, but many of its cities are not keeping pace with the increasing demand for food that comes with that growth. A new FAO publication says policymakers need to act now to ensure that African cities will be "green" enough to meet their nutrition and income needs in a sustainable way.

The publication, Growing greener cities in Africa, is the first status report on African urban and peri-urban horticulture - the home, school, community and market gardens that produce fruits and vegetables in and around the continent's cities.
The report draws on surveys and case studies from 31 countries across the African continent, and makes recommendations on how cities can better prepare to face the rapidly increasing demand for food and other basic amenities.
Many African countries have recorded strong, sustained economic growth over the past decade, leading to more urbanization and raising hopes of a new era of shared prosperity. But increasingly, urban areas also draw people in search of a way out of rural poverty, only to find little, if any improvement in their lives.
More than half of all urban Africans live in slums, up to 200 million survive on less than $2 a day, and poor urban children are as likely to be chronically malnourished as poor rural children.

August 27, 2012

August 26, 2012

BBC News reports that the Burmese government has said that 85,000 people have been driven from their homes by heavy flooding.
The Irrawaddy Delta - where 130,000 people died in a cyclone in 2008 - has been worst affected.
Unusually heavy monsoon rains have inundated around 250,000 hectares of rice fields.

August 25, 2012

BBC News reports that health officials say the US is in the midst of one of its largest outbreaks of West Nile virus.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say there have been 1,118 cases so far in 2012.
Fewer than 300 cases are usually reported this early in the year. There have been 41 US deaths from the mosquito-borne virus in 2012.
Aerial spraying began last week in Dallas, as the death toll in the state of Texas rose to 21.
Insecticide has been sprayed over the city twice, and officials are considering a third flight. Similar spraying was set to begin in Houston on Wednesday.

Health officials think a mild winter and early spring fostered the breeding of mosquitoes that bite infected birds.
Never before have so many illnesses been reported this early in the year, said Dr Lyle Petersen, who oversees the CDC's mosquito-borne illness programmes, adding that most infections are reported in August and September.
"We're in the midst of one of the largest West Nile outbreaks ever seen in the United States," he said.
West Nile virus was first reported in the US in 1999 in New York, peaking in 2002 and 2003, where severe cases of the disease reached nearly 3,000.
Only about one in five people infected with West Nile gets sick, and one in 150 of those infected will develop severe symptoms, including neck stiffness, disorientation, coma and paralysis.
Previous years have seen hot spots for the virus in south-east Louisiana, central and southern California, and areas around Dallas, Houston, Chicago and Phoenix.
But in 2012, there have been reports in 47 states, although about 75% of the cases are from five states: Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Dakota and Oklahoma".

August 24, 2012

Nature reports that environmentalists in South Korea are blaming a major river project for the algal blooms currently choking several of the nation’s waterways.

"The Four Major Rivers Restoration Project was completed last October at a cost of 22 trillion won (US$19.3 billion). Covering the Han, Geum, Nakdong and Yeongsan rivers, the project built 16 dams and dredged 520 million cubic metres of mud from the river beds in a bid to make flood prevention simpler.
But environmentalists say that the dams have turned parts of the rivers into standing water — ideal breeding ground for the cyanobacteria that make up algal blooms".

August 23, 2012

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) is aware there have been nearly 250 human cases of swine-origin influenza A(H3N2)v virus in the recent USA outbreak since it was first identified in August 2011.
The virus has mainly affected children and young adults and is mild in nature.

"Most cases have documented contact with pigs, although in one small cluster of six cases reported in December 2011, there may have been limited human to human transmission. This virus has not been identified in pigs or humans in the UK.
The HPA has recommended that returning travellers with an influenza-like illness who have had contact with pigs in the USA within five days of the onset of their illness, should be investigated further. The HPA is contacting GPs to ensure they are aware of this recommendation in light of this outbreak and we are updating the website with information on this new strain.
The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised this summer that in the US, those at increased risk of the complications of influenza, including older people, small children and those with chronic diseases, should consider avoiding pigs and swine barns.
The strain of H3N2 in the current seasonal flu vaccine is different to the A(H3N2)v although, since the virus is related to the human H3N2 influenza virus that was circulating in the 1990s, studies suggest that adults may have some immunity to this virus whereas children will not".

August 22, 2012

Following the first-ever detection of African swine fever in Ukraine, FAO is warning that while control measures appear to have temporarily halted the disease's spread, it has established a firm foothold in the Caucasus and poses an ongoing risk to neighbouring areas.
In addition to some other parts of Ukraine, nearby countries like Moldova, Kazakhstan and Latvia — which have large pig populations raised on household or family farms, and oftentimes weak biosecurity protocols — are also now at high risk of disease introduction.
"National and local authorities in the entire region should scale up their prevention measures and be ready to respond in case of further outbreaks," said Juan Lubroth, FAO's Chief Veterinary Officer. "This could be the first of more outbreaks to come, according to our disease analyses."
African swine fever (ASF) doesn't affect humans, but mortalities in domestic pigs can be extremely high.
In 2011, up to 300 000 pigs died or were culled as a result of ASF outbreaks in the Russian Federation, incurring an estimated $240 million in economic losses.